Renaissance secures Oman's largest mezzanine financing for loan notes

Muscat: The recent issue of subordinated loan notes of 40 million Omani riyals (Dh381 million) to Omani investors by Renaissance Services, the Omani-based multinational oil and gas services provider, has been fully subscribed in the largest mezzanine financing offer by a non-banking company in the country to date.

Mezzanine financing is a unique and advantageous form of tier-II funding capital that is treated like equity and offers an opportunity to enhance return for investors and the company's shareholders.

BankMuscat structured and supervised the capital raise in its capacity as Transaction Structuring Adviser to the investors in the loan notes. The full subscription of the subordinated loan notes signals strong investor confidence in the company's business model, future outlook and nine-year consecutive record growth track through booms and busts of economic cycles.

"This is the company's first exposure with this form of long-term mezzanine financing which perfectly matches with the long-term growth objectives and long-term nature of the company's solid assets base, and BankMuscat played an important role in the successful closure of this transaction by recognising the intrinsic strength of various businesses of the company," said Vishal Goenka, Chief Financial Officer at Renaissance Services in a company press release yesterday.

Renaissance has set in motion its growth plans to invest 522 million riyals over the three years to 2012 in assets corresponding to its growth areas in marine offshore, engineering and contract services businesses owned by the company.

In the first nine months of this year, Renaissance invested over 96 million riyals, primarily to expand its offshore support vessels fleet which is one of the youngest fleets in the world and ranks amongst the top ten globally.